The Geographical Review

July 2006

VOLUME 96

NUMBER 3

HUMBOLDTS NODES AND MODES OF

INTERDISCIPLINARY ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
IN THE ANDEAN WORLD*
KARL S. ZIMMERER
Alexander von Humboldt engaged in a staggering array of diverse experiences in
the Andes and adjoining lowlands of northwestern South America between 1801 and 1803. Yet
examination of Humboldts diaries, letters, and published works shows how his principal
activities in the Andes centered on three interests: mining and geological landscapes; communications and cartography; a n d use and distribution of the quinine-yielding cinchona
trees. Each node represented a pragmatic concern dealing with environmental resources in
the context of the Andes. To pursue these interests in his Andean field studies, Humboldt
relied o n varied cultural interactions and vast social networks for knowledge exchange, in
addition t o extensive textual comparisons. These modes of inquiry dovetailed with his pragmatic interests and his open-ended intellectual curiosity. Fertile combinations in his Andean
studies provided the foundation and main testing ground for Humboldts fused nature-culture approach as well as his contributions to early geography and interdisciplinary environmental science. Keywords:Aniles, cartography,economic botany,Alexandcr von Humboldt, mining.
ABSTRACT.

T h e contributions of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) to early geography

and environmental science depended on diverse experiences during his travels and
sojourns in the Spanish colonial possessions of the Americas and West Indies (South
America, Mexico, and the Caribbean) between 1799 and 1804. Humboldt drew on
his experiences in the Spanish colonies to enable his success as one of the most
influential public intellectuals of the nineteenth century (BunkSe 1981; Gould 1989;
Bowler 1993; Walls 1995; Nicolson 2006; Sachs 2006). He is known to have relied on
a dense network of cultural and social interactions with his contemporaries in the
This article owes a great deal to initial conversations and comments from many colleagues at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and in the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University. I m i especially indebted t o Jim Scott,
Steven Stoll, Helen Sui, and Fred Musto, the Yale University map curator and Humboldt follower. I also appreciate
the feedback of fellow presenters and audience members at the zoo6 Workshop on Political Ecology and Science
Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the 2006 Environmental History meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota. These included Gregg Mitman, Jason Lindquist, Aaron Sachs, and Laura Walls, AS well as Donald Worster and
Nancy Peluso. Finally, thanksalso to Eric Carter, t o the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript, to Kent Mathewson
and Andrew Sluyter, to Richard Worthington of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cartography laboratory,
to Viola Haarmann and Douglas Johnson, and to Douglas Holland and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
% DR. ZIMMERER
is a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,
Wisconsin 53706.
Copyright

The Geographical Review 96 ( 3 ) :335-360. luly zoo6

zoo7 by the American Geographical Society of New York

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T H E GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

capital cities and intellectual centers of Europe and North America. Similarly important, and central to this article, were Humboldts interactions and networks that
involved the people, places, published accounts, and institutions of Spains New
World colonies.2
Travels and prolonged stays in the Andean region of the Spanish colonial Kingdom of New Granada and part of the Viceroyalty of Peru-present-day Colombia,
Ecuador, and northern and central Peru-constituted the most extended leg of
Humboldts sojourn in Latin America. Along with his traveling companion, the
botanist Aim6 Bonpland (1773-1858), Humboldt landed at Cartagena, in what is
now Colombia, on 30 March 1801 and shortly thereafter began his route through
the Andes via Bogota, the capital of New Granada (Figure i).j After nearly two years,
spent mostly in the Andes, Humboldt and Bonpland set sail from Lima, capital of
the Peruvian Viceroyalty, with a final call at the port of Guayaquil en route to Mexico.
The time of his travels in the Andes-referring to both the Andes Mountains and
foothills and the adjoining lowlands-provided Humboldt with his most sustained
period of in-depth interactions with persons of diverse cultures. He and Bonpland
met with local and international scientists and natural historians, colonial officials,
hacendados, and superintendents of estates and mines.4 Humboldt also interacted
on occasion with the indigenous Andean elites-the kurakas-who claimed their
descent from pre-European nobility. Not least, Humboldt and Bonpland found
ample opportunities for information exchange with local guides, porters, and
backcountry packers of indigenous and mestizo backgrounds.
Following his return to Europe, mainly to Paris and Berlin, Humboldt utilized
and built up his vast networks within European learned societies, receiving an average of 1,500-2,000 letters annually. He also furthered the range and extent of his
reading in many languages, expanding his focus on the history, culture, and environments of the Spanish colonies, especially historical accounts, which included
the genre of natural history, of the New World chroniclers of the colonial conquest and encounter (Canizares-Esguerra 2001). Humboldts works incorporated
the Spanish and other southern European sources judiciously, with careful attention to combing through scientific and scholarly publications (Browne 1944). Numerous works of Spanish authors from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries
filled Humboldts personal library (Zuniga 1989,40).
The extent and range of Humboldts interactions, along with the scope of his
knowledge networks and the texts he utilized, suggest the significant role of these
activities in his Andean field studies, which eventually provided important foundations for modern geography, ecology, and the environmental sciences (Dickinson
1969;Worster 1977; Bowler 1993; Livingstone i993). A similar perspective on knowledge making helps to elucidate the history and formation of other scientific disciplines of which major components have taken place in non-Western settings (see,
for example, Haraway 1989; on the science studies background to my approach,
see Hess 1997; MacLeod 2000). Yet this perspective, by itself, would beg the question
of how Humboldt utilized such interactions, networks, and intertextual dialogue in

HCJMBOLDT I N THE ANDEAN WORLD

337

FIG. i-Places Alexander von Htimboldt and Aime Bonpland visited in the Andes of northwestern
South America, 1801-1803, along with the adjoining lowlands. (Cartography by Richard Worthington,
University of Wisconsin-Madison Cartography Laboratory)

his field studies. Therefore it is paramount to identify the focus of Humboldts

main interests in the Andean region. In doing so my study is fortunate to rely on
his many books and monographs that treat the Andes, including his monumental
Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent (Humboldt [ 1814--1834] 1822-1829; originally published as Voyage aux regions equinoxiales
du Nouveau Continent),as well as Humboldts correspondence and recently pub-

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lished diaries written during his travels (Humboldt [ 1799-18591 1980, [ 1801-18041
1986-1990, [1802] 2002). The latter are a particularly valuable resource (see also
Lubrich 2003).
Mining and geology, communications and cartography, and the use and distribution of the quinine-producing chinchona trees were chief interests that Humboldt
pursued in the Andean region. These topics are discussed separately, with particular attention to how Humboldt deployed cultural interactions, knowledge networks,
and the use of intertextual dialogue in building his expertise. Each topic reflected a
pragmatic concern of economic and political importance that was characteristic-yet
not merely derivative-of the late colonial stage of Andean society. These interests
and their importance to Humboldt also demonstrated the complex influences that
such contextual factors exerted in the early history of geography (Livingstone 1993,
33). Prominent groups ranged from the reform-minded Bourbon rulers with their
policies of market integration and revenue flows (through the modernization and
rationalization of resource extraction) to the scientific circles of the Spanish Enlightenment and pro-independence Creole scientists and protonational political
thinkers. These practical interests are distinct, at first glance, from the renowned
contributions of Humboldts Andean studies to plant geography, ecology, and environmental science. But the conclusion offers a brief interpretation of how Humboldts
modern scientific legacy stemmed from the pragmatic nature of his primary concerns in the Andes along with the interactions and networks (culture, knowledge,
texts) that he deployed in pursuing them.7
LANDSCAPES
MINESA N D GEOLOGICAL

Humboldt had great interest in the mining economies, mineral-extraction operations, and geological landscapes of the Spanish colonies. His technical training and
experience as a mine administrator and mining engineer in Saxony were chief credentials that helped convince the Spanish Crown to grant him permission for travel.
The importance of mining in the colonies had redoubled under the Bourbon Reformers, who sought to modernize mining and processing operations, including at
sites in the northern and central Andes. At the time of his visit Humboldt estimated
that colonial New Granada led the Spanish possessions in gold production, while
colonial Peru ranked second to New Spain in silver output (West 1952, 5; Morner
1985). Humboldts interest in the comparative political economy of mining also extended to labor issues. Under the headingExp1oitation of the Mines in his Andean
diaries, Humboldt calculated the costs of mine labor and operation at Hualgayoc,
the relatively new mines a short distance north of Cajamarca (in present-day northern Peru) that became major suppliers of silver in the late colonial period. He compared these estimates to the declining conditions at Potosi, the older colonial mines
(in present-day Bolivia) that still depended on the viceroyaltys dreaded draft of
forced labor that conscripted Quechua and Aymara peoples in Bolivia and southern Peru (Humboldt [ 1801-18041 1986-1990, [ 18021 2002; Bakewell 1984; Morner
1985; Tandeter 1993).

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339

In traveling southward from Bogota, Humboldt made short visits to smaller

Andean gold and silver mines in the vicinities of Pasto, Quito, and subsequently
Hualgayoc, which had begun production in 1771 (Humboldt 1808, [1808] 1850,425).
At the time of his 1802 visit, Hualgayoc was already perforated with numerous mine
shafts, leading Humboldt to comment on the resemblance of the mining landscape
to a surface studded with windowpanes (into the earth), a description resembling
an indigenous Andean concept related to volcanoes. He spent his visit in the company of the mines superintendent, who supplied information generously. Though
impressed with the yield of mineral ore, Humboldt lamented the backwardness of
the mining techniques, which he equated with what he regarded to be the worst of
European mining operations in England, Poland, and Franconia (notably, he had
worked as a mine inspector between 1792 and 1794 in the last of these places). Technological backwardness was evident in inadequate ventilation, poor construction
and support of mine shafts, and lack of efficient techniques for transporting ore
and conveying water-the latter being necessary both for removing water from the
mine and for the processing of ore (Humboldt [1802] 2002, 61). Humboldt also
criticized the fiscal management of the Hualgayoc mines under ownership that was
concentrated in the hands of a few locally powerful families.
Landforms, more than mining or mineral extraction per se, occupied Humboldt
during this Andean sojourn. Typical of his general interest was his extensive noting
of topography, rock outcrops, and mineralogy in the landscape surrounding the
mines at Hualgayoc. He pursued these observations as clues to interpreting earth
history that did not bear any direct relation to mining. In New Granada, for example, he and Bonpland spent nearly a year in and around Bogota and Quito, with
scores of trips lasting from one day to a few weeks to the mountainous landscapes
that surround the two cities. Humboldts diary entries and correspondence reveal
that he placed a primary emphasis on geological pursuits while residing in Bogota
and Quito and undertaking excursions into the surrounding uplands-the somewhat more extensive diary entries describe the ascents of Antisana, Cotopaxi, Chimborazo (Figure 2), and the three climbs of Pichincha (Humboldt [ 1799-18591 1980,
[ 1801-1804] 1986-1990, [ 1802] 2002).
Various reasons lay behind these excursions into the volcanic highlands.
Humboldt clearly wanted to observe the volcanic craters, upper slopes, rock fields,
and lava flows, as well as the glacial valley landscapes, of the high Andes, principally
to study landforms and sketch interpretations of the genesis of these features. In his
field studies Hurnboldt compiled a series of rock collections that he shipped to European geology experts and museums. He saw the identification of these collections as vital to European geological science, which still lacked basic knowledge of
the Andes. This knowledge enabled his pioneering descriptions of the superposition of geological strata (geognosy,as he referred to it) of western South America
(Humboldt [ 1814-18343 1822-1829).
Humboldt had particular interest in volcanic and tectonic activities-ranging
from eruptions to lava flows, ash emissions, and earthquakes-that had occurred

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL R E V I E W

during the previous century in the Andes of New Granada. His diaries recorded
accounts of local inhabitants about eruptions of the volcano near Latacunga, presumably Cotopaxi, as early as 1698 (Humboldt [18o1-1804] 1986-1990, 2: 84). In
1797, only a few years prior to Humboldts visit, a devastating earthquake had killed
as many as 40,000 people in Riobamba, in what is now central Ecuador, and de-

FIG. 2-Diagram of the Chimborazo volcano. The geology and landforms are shown on the centerright side of the well-known diagram; little attention has focused o n the role of geology and landforms as one of Alexander von Humboldts main interests in the Andes that set the stage for his later
contributions to biogeography and ecological science. Source: Humboldt [ 1814--1834] 1822-1829.

stroyed the city. Humboldt wanted to evaluate competing explanations of volcanic

landscapes and mountain building, one holding that the material in volcanoes had
formed under the sea and the other arguing for volcanic landforms arising strictly
from molten rock (Helferich 2004). The first explanation represented Neptunism,
the Bible-compatible theory advanced by Humboldts teacher Abraham Gottlieb
Werner (1749-1817) at the Bergakademie mining school in Freiberg, Saxony. The
second theory, referred to as Vulcanism or Plutonism, represented the application of the uniformitarianism principle of James Hutton (1726-1797) that helped
found modern geology. Encapsulated in Huttons (1788, 304) famous aphorism,
no vestige of a beginning-no prospect of an end, unformitarianism held that
the processes responsible for mountain building in the past were the same as those
at work in the present. Humboldt never settled firmly on one side of the NeptunismVulcanism debate, although he clearly used the contrasting interpretations as a
motivation and framework for many of his geological observations, particularly
those in the volcanic high country of the equatorial Andes (for examples, see
Helferich 2004).

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341

One of Humboldts chief activities was the comprehensive measuring of elevation and related physical environmental factors. The historian of science Susan Cannon and the Humboldt biographer Charlotte Kellner have both described the details
and models of his scientific equipment, which included as many as thirty-one scientific instruments (Kellner 1963, 62; Cannon 1978, 75-76; see also Botting 1973;
Bourguet, Licoppe, and Sibum 2002; Buttimer 2003). Humboldts renowned Tableau physique des Andes in Essai sur la gkugraphie des plantes (1805) presents the
elevation-related states of no fewer than twenty-one variables (Dettelbach 1996). In
his Andean diaries, Humboldt [ 1801-18041 1986-1990,~:56; my translation) referred
to these measurements as geodata operations. He recorded most frequently the
measurements of elevation, temperature, and magnetism; and the extent of his measurements was most exhaustive in the Andes, although he and Bonpland had initiated such recording while still in Spain and the Canary Islands.
Humboldt measured the elevations of an array of features that ranged from
geological, biological, and topographic (for example, glacial lakes, snow line, vegetation limits, and summit elevations) to settlements (for example, the city of Quito
and the hacienda house of Don Joaquin Sanchez that, at approximately 13,105 feet
above sea level, he estimated as the worlds highest habitation; see Humboldt [ 180118041 1986-1990,2: 61). Humboldt eagerly compared his measurement results with
published estimates, particularly those of the mathematician Charles Marie La
Condamine (i701--1774), who led a well-known expedition to the equatorial Andes
during the 1730s that held continued renown in European scientific circles, especially those in Paris. Humboldt also created a steady stream of comparisons, most
of which cast his elevation measurements as correctives of those of Condamine and
the French and Spanish scientists who were the formers expedition companions
(see especially Humboldt 1810). Once back in Europe, Humboldt worked in conjunction with Bonpland to apply many of these elevation measurements to their
geographical descriptions and models of plant distributions.
At first glance, Humboldts geological research activities could seem to have been
solitary endeavors, but they were made possible through the counsel and assistance
of numerous people, including locally knowledgeable individuals who were not
scientific experts. Humboldt frequently acknowledged receiving information about
volcanic eruptions and earthquakes (such as the dates, nature, and severity of recent
events as well as earlier historical ones) from local residents. For example, Juan de
Larrea, who lived in Quito, provided detailed information on lava flows and the
occurrence of igneous rocks, such as obsidian, in the outskirts of the city (Humboldt
[1801-18041 1986-1990,2: 58). Humboldt also depended on the haciendas that provided lodging and food in the rural backcountry and served as base camps for his
geological field activities in the high country, including the ascent of volcanoes. Not
least, Humboldts activities required the constant services of indigenous and mestizo
people of the Andes who served as guides and packers. These people were essential to
Humboldt and Bonplands success-along with one or more of their Spanish or upper-class Creole associates, such as Carlos Montafur, the son of a Spanish nobleman

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

who hosted the visitors at his estate outside Quito-in finding their way through the
rural landscapes of the mountainous high country. The high-country grazing lands,
known as parumo in the northern Andes, were notoriously hazardous due to the
often foggy conditions and dense cloud cover that limited visibility and frequently
disoriented travelers. Local inhabitants were expert way finders, as well as muleteers
and porters, in these high-country landscapes. The latter capacity proved essential
for Humboldt and his companions, whose supplies included not only numerous
pieces of scientific equipment but also the weighty addition of rock collections that
had to be carried by humans where the rugged terrain precluded pack animals.
Humboldt saw the indigenous people of the Andes as the downtrodden and
degenerate descendants of a once advanced pre-European civilization. Yet, at the
same time, he described these Andean people as capable and knowledgeable. In his
diaries he offered a number of commentaries on his interactions, ranging from
finding out about their perceptions of volcanoes, to his visits to Indian villages
and his view of these people as backcountry guides. Regarding the latter, Humboldt
offered the patronizing comment that, on the journey from Bogota to Quito, the
Andean Indians were good, loyal, intelligent, and helpful in the face of danger if
they were treated with friendship and trust (Humboldt [ i801-1804] 1986-1990,2:
48; my translation). In the same paragraph Humboldt describes their limitations as
guides: They knew the vegetated areas used as grazing lands but not the areas at the
highest elevations. By contrast, he noted, White people, such as Europeans undertook scientific expeditions in order to know the true nature of a volcanic crater
and the summits of high mountains.
Perceptions of volcanoes, views of mineral wealth, and the possible restoration
of Inca rule formed a few of Humboldts interpretations of geology and mining that
were based on his interactions with indigenous people. He commented on the local
Indians descriptions of volcanic craters as windows in his diary; although his
accounts do not expand on the specific meaning of window, it is likely that, to
Andean people, the crater symbolized an opening into the world of earth deities.
On mineral wealth Humboldt offered an extensive description of the beliefs held by
members of the Astorpilco family, inhabitants of Cajamarca who had descended
through the matrilineal line from Atahuallpa, the last Inca ruler, whom Francisco
Pizarrosexpeditionary force had treacherously kidnapped, ransomed, and beheaded
in 1532 (Humboldt [i808] 1850,409-415). Humboldt saw these descendants of Inca
nobility as resigned to their downtrodden condition, seeming to live in a state fallen
from the former splendor of their ancestors: They live in great poverty, but nevertheless contented and resigned to their hard and unmerited fate ( [ 18081 1850,411).
He was dismayed that the Astorpilco family still held to the belief that inestimable
riches lay buried beneath their domestic compound. The family members were disinclined, however, to act on these illusions and excavate the site. One source of
the familys resolve, Humboldt noted, was the widespread belief among Andean
Indians that to actively search for these treasures would risk undermining the eventual restoration of the Inca as rulers of the Andes.

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343

COMMUNICATION
s A N D CARTOGRAPHY
Communications and cartography were also Humboldts primary interests during
his Andean travels and sojourn. He regularly expressed curiosity about the functioning of communications in relation to political geography; for example, he noted
that the establishment of maritime and inland posts has placed the colonies in
more intimate intercourse with each other, and with the mother country
(Huniboldt [ 1814-1834] 1822-1829,i: 24). Not coincidentally, Humboldt crafted this
comment while waiting in the Spanish port of La Coruiia for their departure on
the Pizarro, a packet boat whose primary duty was mail delivery. Once en route he
and Bonpland expressed not only a general concern about mail delivery but also its
impacts on their correspondence and the shipments of their geological and plant
collections.
Travel routes on land and along waterways framed the layout of the main topographic maps that Humboldt prepared. The upriver passage from Cartagena, for
example, provided the spatial design of his Rio Magdalena map, which became the
most accurate and comprehensive cartographic representation to date of this prominent river system. It was incorporated into Humboldts map of Colombia (Figure
3 ) . These cartographic representations created early images of national territory
that fueled the geographical awareness and protonational identities of Colombias
nascent pro-independence movement that led to the formation in 1822 of the Republic of New Granada (present-day Colombia and Ecuador) (Perez-Mejia 2002).
Colombian patriots such as Francisco Jose de Caldas (1771-1816) and Francisco Antonio Zea (1770-1822), for example, recognized the value of Humboldts Rio Magdalena map to their political movement and identity as independent New Granadans.
The map offered a much-needed portrayal of the emerging postcolonial national
space and hence territorial identity. Similarly, Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) acknowledged the importance of Humboldts map of the Rio Orinoco system as a cartographic image that helped create the national territorial identity of Venezuela.
In these efforts Humboldt also relied on a range of existing expert knowledge of
the cartography of South America. He tended especially to compare his cartographic
efforts with those of Condamine and Jorge Juan, the Spanish topographer who had
accompanied the French expedition. In addition to these well-known sources,
Humboldt relied on a range of less publicized works. In mapping the Andean areas
of present-day Colombia, for example, he made use of the mapping surveys of colonial and postindependence topographers, among whom were Josk Manuel
Restrepo and Mariano Eduardo de Rivero, the latter having been a member of the
1822-1832 expedition to Gran Colombia led by the French agricultural chemist Jean
Baptiste Boussingault (Humboldt [ 1814-18343 1822-1829, 6: 252-253). In Europe,
Humboldt also consulted copies of maps dating to the sixteenth century, which
included a variety of Spanish and Italian sources.
Humboldts mapmaking during his oceanic voyages and Andean sojourn required the frequent recording of latitude and longitude, which he measured using

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T H E GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

FIG. 3-Detailed section from Alexander von Humboldts map of Colombia, which was distributed
as an insert in volume 4 of Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions ofthe New Continent,
during the Years 1799-1804 (Humboldt [1814-1834] 1822-1829). Several of the cities and towns, such as
Pasto, Popayan, and Bogota (shown as S. FE DE BOGOTA)
were home to anticolonial Creole scientists
with whom Humboldt interacted extensively. These urban areas, and particularly the Colombia map,
figured importantly in the pro-independence political identities of these scientists.

H U M B O L D T IN T H E ANDEAN WORLD

345

the chronometer, telescope, and sextants he had brought from Europe. In addition
to elevation measurements and notes on landforms and rock outcrops, latitude and
longitude measurements were principal types of Humboldts geodata operations.
He also referred to these cartographic data points as a means of comparing his own
estimates with those of other scientists. His comparisons in the equatorial Andes
tended to focus on works of the French expedition, but he made comparisons whenever possible in other areas, ranging from Captain James Cook (1728-1779) and the
location of Tenerife to Alessandro Malaspina (1754-1810) and the location of Lima.
As he did with elevation readings, Humboldt often presented his latitude and longitude estimates ;is correctives to earlier measurements (Humboldt [ 18081 1850,429,
436; [ 1814-18343 1822-1829, 1: 117). His interest in determining exact locations extended well beyond the application to cartography, for he saw location as theoretically essential and predictive (Godlewska i999a, 244).
Throughout their travels Humboldt and Bonpland were presented with a wide
range of experience due to their reliance on water transportation. Many such experiences occurred in places other than western South America. Crossing the Atlantic
Ocean from Spain, for example, had involved interactions with the ships captain
and crew that Humboldt recorded. Humboldt had also used this opportunity to
read the ancient voyages of the Spaniards, principally the accounts of Piedro
Martire dAnghiera (1534),who was also known as Peter Martyr, Antonio Herrera y
Tordesillas (1601-1615), and Fernando Colon (i57i), as well as Francisco Lopez de
Gomaras Historiu general rle las indias (Humboldt [ 1814-18343 1822-1829, 1: 117).
Traveling on waterways took Humboldt and Bonpland, under the paddling power
of indigenous boatmen, up the Rio Orinoco to the Casiquiare canal connection
with the Amazon-feeding Rio Negro. Likewise, waterborne transportation set the
stage for one of Humboldts most novel ethnographic descriptions in the Andes.
Crossing the low pass of the cordillera between Loja and Cajamarca, he and Bonpland
were fording the Rio Chamaya, which they eventually traversed at upward of thirty
sites (Humboldt [ 18021 2002,56; 1808; [i808] 1850,420). Humboldt noticed the presence of Jivaro Indians swimming or floating downstream with balsa logs as a means
of travel. A few Jivaros acted as swimming couriers who delivered mail from Pomahuaca to Tomependa as a segment of the main mail route from the coastal port of
Trujillo to Jaen, the Amazonian port in closest proximity to the Andes. While swimming for two days, the Jivaro couriers transported mail deliveries in large cotton
handkerchiefs wound around their heads like turbans. The description of indigenous mail delivery with swimming couriers offered the contrast between traditional techniques and the modern ones preferred by Humboldt and his audiences,
both in the colonies and in Europe.
Roads supplied the majority of Humboldts experience with transportation and
communication in the Andes. These Andean roads were akin to trails in most places.
Yet, as Humboldt wrote to his brother Wilhelm (1767-1835), the well-known linguist based in Berlin, he and Bonpland traversed the Andean roads by walking rather
than being carried in a chair strapped to the back of an Indian curguero, the class of

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

workers in the late colonial period who specialized in transporting such people as
high-ranking colonial officials (Humboldt [ 18021 2002, 92). Humboldt calculated
that he and Bonpland were able to walk for an average of three to four hours a day.
The difficulty of travel worsened during the rainy season, when the roads turned
into muddy quagmires. Humboldt complained bitterly, both in his correspondence
and his diary, about the horrendous condition of the Andean roads between Bogota
and Quito and in the mountainous uplands en route to Cajamarca.
Counterpoised to his laments of colonial roads, Humboldt eulogized the impressive roadwork of the long-dethroned Inca, using his personal visual inspections
of the still-intact remnants of these Inca roads as well as the descriptions of them in
early colonial texts. He described these roads in a prominent passage in The Plateau, or Table-Land, of Caxamarca, the Ancient Capital of the Inca Atahuallpa, and
First View of the Pacific from the Ridge of the Andes. This essay, derived largely
from his diary, is a main chapter in Views of Nature ([1808]1850, 390-420), and
Humboldt regarded it as one of his favorites. He drew a contrast between the desolate nature of the paramo in the Cajamarca upland and the impressive Inca road
still traversing it:
The solemn impression which is felt on beholding the deserts of the Cordilleras, is
increased in a remarkable and unexpected manner, by the circumstance that in these
very regions there still exist wonderful remains of the great road of the Incas, that
stupendous work by means of which, communication was maintained among the
provinces of the empire along an extent of upwards of 1000 geographical miles. On
the sides of this road, and nearly at equal distances apart, there are small houses,
built of well-cut freestone. These buildings, which answered the purpose of stations,
or caravanseries [sic],are called Tambos, and also Inca-Pilca. . . .Some are surrounded
by a sort of fortification; others were destined for baths, and had arrangements for
the conveyance of warm water. . . . Pedro de Ciega, who wrote in the sixteenth century, calls these structures Aposentos de Mulalo. . . . We experienced considerable
difficulty in guiding our heavily laden mules over the marshy ground . . . ;but whilst
we journeyed onward . . .our eyes were continually rivetted on the grand remains of
the Inca Road, upwards of 20 feet in breadth. This road had a deep understructure,
and was paved with well-hewn blocks of black trap porphyry. None of the Roman
roads which I have seen in Italy, in the south of France and Spain, appeared to me
more imposing than this work of the ancient Peruvians. . . . We saw still grander
remains of the ancient Peruvian Inca road, on our way between Loxa and the Amazon, near the baths of the Incas on the Paramo of Chulucanas, not far from
Guancabamba, and also in the vicinity of Ingatambo, near Pomahuaca. (Humboldt
118081 1850,393-394)

In this passage Humboldt drew on his firsthand observations of Inca ruins, not
only the imperial roadway but also its roadside inns (turnbos) and nearby palaces.
Although the passage depicts his observations in Cajamarca, he also recorded extensive notes on a variety of sites in present-day Ecuador (Mathewson 1986;Walls 2006).
In framing his observations of the Inca ruins and formulating his interpretations,
Humboldt helped pioneer a perspective of landscape archaeology that placed em-

HUMBOLDT IN T H E ANDEAN WORLD

347

phasis on understanding the context of individual sites within the cultural landscapes that had been forged from the physical environment (Mathewson 1986;
Denevan, Mathewson, and Knapp 1987). As a complement to this field study,
Humboldt demonstrated his familiarity with the foremost written descriptions of
the early colonial period that described these sorts of remains as well as various
other aspects of the pre-European past of the Andes. His chief sources included the
Crbnica del Perti of Pedro de Cieza de Leon (1518-1560) ( [ 15531 1984),to whom Humboldt refers as Pedro de Cieqa in the above quotation, and the works of Padre Blas
Valera of Cuzco, the widely traveled Jesuit priest Jose de Acosta, the Inca Garcilaso
de laVega, and the licentiate Juan Polo de Ondegardo (?-i575), which were written in
the 1500s and early 1600s. Cieza de Leon and Polo de Ondegardo eventually gained
renown as a pair of early colonial writers who provided highly informative, insightful, and well-reasoned accounts later praised as landmarks in ethnohistory.
Humboldt based his awareness of the history of Andean peoples on a time frame
that reached deeply into the pre-Inca past. He directed a number of his inquiries to
those pre- and non-Inca cultures and ethnic groups that had preceded and been
absorbed into the rule of the Inca conquerors from the Cuzco region, often using
descriptions of Inca roads and ruins as a benchmark that seemed analogous to a
geological stratum. In his diary accounts of northern Peru near JaCn, for instance,
Humboldt sketched the ruins of an Inca building and also noted, in the same passage, that the local inhabitants spoke the pre- or non-Inca languages of Copallin,
Chirinos, or Pomahuaca because the area occupied the Inca frontier (Humboldt
[1802] 2002, 56). He then employed an astute blend of cultural and linguistic history, reasoning that the Inga language-that is, Incan or Quechua-had probably
spread still farther in this area in early colonial times via Jesuit priests. Humboldt
pieced together that the clergy had gained a conversational familiarity with Quechua
and used it to enhance their influence in relation to the Spanish Crown, reasoning
that some colonial officials did not speak the native language.
Similar interest in the pre- and non-Inca elements of the Andean past had guided
Humboldt slightly earlier in the journey, while he was still traveling in present-day
Ecuador. In a letter written to Wilhelm a short time afterward (posted from Lima
on 25 November 1802), Humboldt described how he was examining the Inca road
and building ruins at Riobamba, south of Quito, and staying in the house of a local
magistrate when he met Leandro Zapla, a descendent of provincial Inca elites (Humboldt [ 1799-18593 1980,9697). Humboldt described his encounter with Zapla and
the status of the latters lineage even though much diminished since Inca times. But
of greatest interest to Humboldt was an ancient manuscript in the local language
of Purugnay that was in Zaplas possession and that recounted pre-Inca history
from the viewpoint of one of the kurakas ancestors.
Humboldts grasp of the multiethnic formations of the Andes, rather than the
Inca-centric view that has often prevailed in modern historiography, stemmed from
his use of multiple approaches and his openness to sources that included intercultural exchanges of information (Salomon 1985).In gaining an ethnohistorical aware-

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ness that was incisive for his time he employed approaches that disentangled the
impacts of Inca versus non- and pre-Inca ethnic groups. He undertook extensive
field studies of Inca ruins, with emphasis on the state-built roadside inns and storehouses that demonstrated vividly the imposition of Inca rule in places at the empires
northern Andean periphery and adjoining foothill frontiers. He also drew readily
on his own ethnographic inquiries and insights, which included a substantial interest in non-Inca languages and cultures. Finally, he made use of early colonial written sources that included many of the main histories of the Andes. In general,
Humboldt appears to have seen the relationship between pre- or non-Inca cultures
and those of the Inca as similar to the overlaying of geological strata, writing Thus,
through every stage of civilization, we pass into an earlier one (Humboldt [i808]
1850,398).
USE A N D DISTRIBUTION
O F CINCHONA

Prior to his travels beginning in 1799 Humboldt likely knew nothing of the Andean
cinchona or quinquina tree, whose bark supplies quinine, the substance that is
natures most effective antimalarial compound. Throughout his writings Humboldt
did not indicate any familiarity with its use in Europe, although the bark, often
referred to as Peruvian bark, was applied medicinally there, especially in Spain
and Italy. An oft-repeated account claims that the European discovery of cinchonas
antimalarial properties is owed to having saved the life of the malaria-infected
Countess of Chinchon while she was visiting Lima in 1640 from her estate near
Madrid (Hobhouse 1986; Honigsbaum 2002). Although Humboldt told the same
story of the Spanish discovery of cinchona in The Plateau of Caxamarca in Views
ofNature ([1808] 1850, 390-391, 422-423), neither in this essay nor in his other
writings did he offer a single mention of the usage or application of cinchona in
Europe.
Humboldts lack of prior knowledge of cinchona and its usage in Europe stood
in sharp contrast to his newfound expertise in South America. By the early 1800s he
was regarded as a South American cinchona expert whose chapter on distribution
(Humboldt 1821) was central to a landmark British publication by Aylmer Bourke
Lambert (1761-1842), then vice president of the London-based Linnaean Society.
The use of cinchona as the most common name in English, derived from the
Spanish chinchona, had been established by the early 1800s; other names have included quina and quinquina, Amerindian names for the tree and the bark, as well as
Peruvian bark, Spanish bark, Jesuits bark, and Indian bark. The publication of Lamberts cinchona book, first in 1797 and then with Humboldts chapter in
1821 as An Illustration of the Genus Cinchona; Comprising Descriptions of All the
Oficinal Peruvian Barks including Several New Species (Figure 4), occurred amid a
growing development of British and Dutch interests that led to the imperial pirating, and subsequent transplanting, of this efficacious antimalarial to colonial India
and the Dutch East Indies by midcentury. Ironically, Humboldts cinchona expertise was made possible through his contacts with a group of local scientists, most of

H U M B O L D T I N T H E A N D E A N WORLD

349

FIG. 4-Botanical drawing of the quinine plant known as cinchona, or Cirrchono oficitialis, that
was published in Aylmer Bourkc Laniberts An Illustrotiorr ofthe Genus Cinchona; Comprising Descriptions ofAll the OficindPcrirvirrti h r k s including Several Ncw Species. Humboldts acquisition of expertise in the distribution of cinchona contributed to the revised and widely circulated edition of Lamberts
volume in 1821. (Reproduced courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis)

whom were Creoles involved in anticolonial politics and the pro-independence

movement of New Granada.
In acquiring his expertise on cinchona, Humboldt built on generous exchanges
with local scientists and others who possessed expert knowledge. He learned a great
deal in the local scientific circles of Bogota, Popayan, and Quito, which had become
colonial centers of expertise-including native-born or Creole scientists-on the
native tree with the quinine-containing bark. The scientific expertise concerning
cinchona in these places exerted a pull on Humboldt prior to his and Bonplands
arrival in the Andes, when their itinerary was still in flux. According to a letter he
wrote to Jose Clavijo y Fajardo (1730?--1806), vice director of the Royal Cabinet of
Natural History of Madrid, one compelling opportunity was to visit in Bogota (and
later Popayan) with Jose Celestino Mutis (1732-1808) (Humboldt [ 1799-18591 1980).
Mutis, or the celebrated Mutis as Humboldt referred to him, was a physician and
the foremost botanist of South America. In 1783 Mutis had founded the Crownfunded Royal Botanical Expedition to the Kingdom of New Granada, which scoured
the area collecting and identifying plants. Mutis also established a voluminous bo-

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T H E GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

tanical library in Bogota (which Humboldt claimed was second in the world only to
that of Joseph Banks [1743-1820] in London), regularly corresponded with Carl
Linnaeus (1707-1778) in Sweden, and maintained close ties to the leading natural
history and botanical institutions in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Mutis had become the worlds leading scientific authority on cinchona.
Cinchona was one of Mutiss chief botanical interests for the combined reasons
of botanical science and the usefulness and economic value of the plant. He initially
undertook systematic studies of his extensive collection of taxonomic specimens
because, although many species in the genus have a similar appearance, only one,
Chinchona oficinalis, is highly effective as an antimalarial. In 1794 Mutis published a
scholarly volume entitled El arcano de la quina ([1794] 1828). He also pursued an
active personal interest in the commerce of cinchona bark that, together with some
mining operations, contributed to his substantial wealth (Perez-Mejia 2002). He
loaned his house in Popayan to Humboldt and Bonpland, who lived there for nearly
three months while they learned from Mutis and his students about cinchona and
the flora of New Granada. Cinchona was already widely recognized as the regions
most prized economic plant, particularly for the purpose of export, an emphasis of
fiscal policy under the Bourbon Reforms of the Spanish Crown and central to
Humboldts general interests. To express their esteem and gratitude, Humboldt and
Bonpland later dedicated Essai sur la gtographie des plantes to Mutis (Perez-Mejia
2002,12); the essay became one of the founding texts of modern biogeography and
ecology (Buttimer 2003; Lomolino, Sax, and Brown 2004).
In learning from Mutis about cinchona, Humboldt indirectly gained knowledge about the plant and its uses that were a part of the ethnobotanical culture of
the indigenous people of the Andean foothills. Humboldt estimated that cinchona
grew from about 2,500 feet to 9,000 feet above sea level, thus placing it in the transition area between Andean people and those of the upper Amazon. In El arcano de
la quina Mutis ( [ 17941 1828, v) had credited the indigenous people of the Andean
foothills with knowledge of the plants antimalarial properties, which they had presumably recognized from having used it to treat other fevers. Mutis wrote that these
indigenous people produced a fermented beverage of cinchona that was most natural, simple, and healthy. But Mutiss recognition of indigenous knowledge in the
use of cinchona did not go unchallenged: Lambert (1821,22), for example, declared
that the natives . . . would die rather than have recourse to Cinchona bark.
Humboldt and Bonpland also interacted extensively with a group of local Andean
scientists of Creole background who had become experts on the regional flora and
fauna and, in many cases, on cinchona. This latter group included Francisco Jose de
Caldas (1768-1816), Francisco Antonio Zea (1770-1822), Jorge Tadeo Lozano (17711816), and Joaquin Acosta (1779-1852). Most of the Creole scientists were affiliated at
some time with Mutis under his directorship of the Royal Botanical Expedition to
the Kingdom of New Granada. Caldas and Zea, in particular, became experts on
cinchona, responding to Mutiss teaching and to the economic importance of cinchona in New Granada. Later many of these local Creole scientists embraced anti-

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351

colonial and pro-independence political sentiments, leading the Royal Botanical

Expedition to gain renown in Colombian and Latin American historiography as a
hotbed of patriotic fervor and an example of Creole consciousness expressed through
the scientific culture that took shape at that time (Pimental 2000; PPrez-Mejia 2002).
Their political commitments, the tumult of Creole revolts, and the bloody but shortlived Reconquest under the counteroffensive of the Spanish General Pablo Morillo
(1775-1837) led to the deaths of a number of these local scientists, including Caldas,
in front of royalist firing squads during the period after 1810. Humboldts acquisition of knowledge about the use, economic importance, taxonomy, and distribution of cinchona was thus set amid this rather remarkable network of Creole,
anticolonial scientists in western South America. This anticolonial element in the
cultural history of cinchona etched a rather vivid contrast to the Spanish control of
its trade and to the subsequent establishment of massive British and Dutch colonial
plantations that enabled these powers political and economic domination in Asia
and Africa.
Caldas presents an intriguing case of Humboldts interaction with one of the
local scientists of Andean Creole background. He was an outstanding scientist, with
advanced expertise spanning physical science-astronomy in particular, and scientific instrumentation with emphasis on elevation measurements-geography (mapping), and botany (Parsons i949,22; Caldas 1966; Appeli994). A native of Popayan,
he had been occupied in Quito pursuing the legal affairs of his estate-owning family
in late 1801 when Humboldt and Bonpland spent several weeks in his hometown.
Impatient to meet the two, and apparently concerned that some of his scientific
accomplishments might be comniunicated to the Europeans in his absence, Caldas
met the European travelers in Ibarra (in present-day Ecuador) and spent the next
few months with them in field studies of the equatorial volcanoes and high-mountain geomorphology, the astronomical and trigonometric measurement of survey
points, and plant collecting, which included cinchona. Humboldt ( [ 1799-18591 1980,
y i ) later referred to Caldas as an exemplar of the American civilization that is so
far advanced. Caldass own study of the environmental aspects of cinchona distributions, which had started before and continued during Humboldts visit, expanded
into a sustained investigation in 1802-1804 (Appel 1994).
Humboldt gradually learned and later wrote about the distribution of cinchona
trees in various places of the eastern Andean foothills between Venezuela and Bolivia. In volume 6 (Humboldt [1814-1834] 1822-1829, 6: 428) of the Personal Narrutive of liruvels to the Equinoctiul Regions of the New World, he described the forests
north of Chachapoyas (present-day Peru) as still rich in fine trees of quina (cinchona] while he also described their distribution in places in the Huallaga Valley
(in northern present-day Peru), Loja, and Popayan. Humboldt also focused on the
elevation limits of the distribution of cinchona on mountain slopes, as did Caldas
(Appel 1994). Even in his general plant geography, Humboldt ([1814-18341 18221829, 6 : 428) accented the highly detailed and specific knowledge of the elevationrelated distribution of cinchona in the Andes. He visually highlighted this knowledge

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL R E V I E W

of cinchona by diagramming its elevation limits and those of other Andean taxa,
thus providing an unprecedented emphasis on vision and visibility in his contributions to this formative phase of modern natural history, early geography, and
protoecological science (Foucault 1970; Gregory 1994, 21; Gade 1999; Godlewska
1999% 1999b).
Humboldt also offered detailed personal observations of chinchona trees in wild
stands of tropical mountain forest near Loja, which he later wrote about in his chapter
on The Plateau of Caxamarca in Views ofNature ( [ 1808] 1850,390-391). He painted
Loja as a refreshing change after having sojourned for a whole year on the ridge of
the Andes. . . . amidst the table-lands of New Granada, Pastos [sic],and Quito
(Humboldt [ 18081 1850,390) and recorded:
The little town of Loxa has given its name to the most efficacious of all fever barks,
-the Quina, or the Cascarilla fina de Loxa. This bark is the precious produce of the
tree, which we have botanically described as the Cinchona Condaminea; but which,
(from the erroneous supposition that the Cinchona known in commerce was obtained from one and the same tree,) had previously been called Cinchona officinalis
. . . . The finest kind of Cinchona is obtained at the distance of from eight to twelve
miles southward of the town of Loxa, among the mountains of Uritusinga,Villonaco,
and Runiisitana. The trees which yield this bark grow on mica slate and gneiss, at the
moderate elevations of 5755 and 7673 feet above the level of the sea, nearly corresponding, respectively, with the heights of the Hospital on the Grimsel and the Pass
of the Great St. Bernard. The Cinchona Woods in these parts are bounded by the
little rivulets Zamora and Cachyacu. (Humboldt 1850 [i808],390-391)

Humboldt expressed an environmentalist concern, based on the depletion of a

valuable resource, that overharvesting was degrading the Andean stands of cinchona
trees. His assessment of the ecological threat ranged from the moderate alteration of
stand dynamics to stand clearing within cinchona forests. This description of degradation to naturally occurring Andean cinchona stands echoed Humboldts general
concern for resource scarcity and overharvesting; it also demonstrated a previously
overlooked application of this concern to the context of potentially global stocks of
environmental resources (Robbins 2004, 22-23; Lindquist 2006). While in Loja, for
example, Humboldt ([1808] 1850, 391) deduced that the intensity of cinchona harvesting was leading to ecological decline in that the older and thicker stems are
becoming more and more scarce. He figured that the younger trees being harvested
measured only 6 inches in diameter, although their growth was adequate to meet
demand. Elsewhere he estimated that 25,000 cinchona trees were lost in New Granada
every year, which would have represented considerable deforestation, at least in the
localized areas where harvesting was concentrated (Hobhouse 1986). The negative
impacts of cinchona harvesting were in fact widely recognized. Nearly a decade before Humboldts observations, for instance, Mutis ( [1794] 1828) had expressed serious concerns about the growing scarcity of cinchona due to overharvesting.
A dense network of exchanges with international scientific authorities, including Lambert and Mutis, marked Humboldts growing interest and acquisition of

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353

knowledge about cinchona. Mutis vied for recognition as the worlds leading botanist of cinchona with JosePabon and Hipolito Ruiz, who had led the Spanish Crowns
botanical expedition to Peru in the years before Mutiss own Royal Botanical Expedition to the Kingdom of New Granada in 1783. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Humboldt
also encountered and engaged once again with the scientific legacy of Condamine,
who, several decades prior to Humboldts travels, had made observations on wild
cinchona in the Andes south of Loja. Condamine also crafted drawings of the cinchona plant that were sent to Linnaeus, but his attempt to transport several young
cinchona trees down the Amazon and eventually across the Atlantic failed when
they were lost from the boat early in the trip. Condamines work on cinchona was
widely acknowledged: Lambert (1821, 23) considered him the first man of science
who examined and described the Cinchona tree. Humboldt and Bonpland (Humboldt [ 18081 1850,390) honored Condamines legacy in their description of the cinchona of Loja and chose the scientific term Cinchona condarninea. Their naming of
the species in honor of Condamine was conspicuous in that it contradicted the
standard designation Cinchona oficinalis, which was Linnaeuss naming that remained as the accepted taxonomic binomial.
A N D PURPOSE
OF HUMBOLDT
I N T H E ANDES
PRAGMATISM

The study of mining and geological landscapes, communications and cartography,

and the use and distribution of cinchona emerged as the principal nodes of
Humboldts interests while in the Andean region. Although Humboldt initially possessed expert knowledge only of mining and geological landscapes, he rapidly acquired expertise in his other interests. All three sets of interests reflected concerns
that were pragmatic in the context of the late colonial Andes. The relative lack of
attention that has been focused thus far on these areas of Humboldts interest bear
comment. At least some of the oversight may be due to a flawed presentist assumption that present-day importance, such as Humboldts renowned contributions to plant geography and ecology, mirrors the relative weight of activities as
they occurred historically (Livingstone 1993). This has led to emphasis on the role
of relatively untouched or pristine nature in Humboldts Andean field studies, such
as the snowy reaches of the Chimborazo volcano.8 Yet the findings of this study
underscore Humboldts simultaneous valuation of the Andes as a cultural milieu,
corresponding to the accolades he heaped on certain Andean places as centers of
culture, referring, for example, to Bogota and Quito as the Athens of the Americas (Whitaker 1960, 322).
No mere coincidence led Humboldt to focus on topical interests in the Andes
that offered a neat correspondence to his intense and seemingly unceasing curiosity
(Gade 1999). Pursuing these interests relied not only on his field studies but also on
extensive cultural interactions, networks of knowledge, and intertextual dialoguemodes of inquiry that held great appeal for him. It was thus important that
Humboldts topical pursuits were both pragmatic and held as vitally important in
the leading scientific and political circles of the Andean region and beyond.

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Humboldt was drawn to the modes of how the topics were examined as well as to
the topics themselves. His attachments to the modes of inquiry highlighted in this
study-involving interactions, networks, and intertextual dialogue-acted as driving forces, or at least as strong reinforcements, in determining his main areas of
scientific interest. The importance of these modes to Humboldt reveals the openness that characterized his intellectual personality and, to some extent, reflected
Humboldts distinctive intellectual blending of Enlightenment science and scientific Romanticism. This openness was intellectual and emotional and a trademark
of his Essai sur la gkographie des plantes (1805) and was later enshrined in his magnum opus, Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung (1845-1862), which
strove to forge a unity of human geographical and environmental knowledge (Bowen
1981; BunkSe 1981; Livingstone 1993, 137; Rupke 1997; Godlewska i999b; Buttimer
2003; Helferich 2004). Yet a formative phase of Humboldts lifework had already
been productively rooted in his pragmatic pursuits that took place in the Andean
region. His Andean studies served as the proving or testing ground that convinced
Humboldt of the viability of human-environmental synthesis.
My findings on the main topical interests and style of inquiry that Humboldt
pursued in the Andes can be used to touch on a few of the current debates regarding Humboldt and his endeavors. First, the attention Humboldt paid to Andean
languages-which reflected in part the influence of his brother Wilhelm, who had
already become an accomplished linguist-did not indicate an approach that could
be ascribed to ethnography or ethnology per se (Salomon 1985).Nonetheless, it did
reveal sensitivity to cultural practices and a penchant for weighing diverse sorts of
scholarly evidence that support the claims of Humboldts founding contributions
to landscape archaeology and cultural geography (Mathewson 1986; Gade 1999).
Second, the findings of this study are relevant to the interpretation of Humboldt
through the lens of transculturation, in which he undertook to recreate [sic]
South America in connection with its new opening to Northern Europe (Pratt
1992,119).This study contributes to rethinking the portrayal of Humboldt as a predominantly or purely European Enlightenment figure who was postcolonial in the
sense that his experiences and ideas existed outside the contours of colonialism
when, in fact, the latter context shaped his main activities and his modes of
inquiry-albeit without predetermining them (see also Godfrey 1993; Sachs 2003).
Finally, my finding of Humboldts commitment to the systematic use of multiple
source materials resonates with the recent elucidation of his contribution to the
historiography of Latin America (Canizares-Esguerra 2001).
Relationships between pragmatic pursuits and intellectual purpose are often
complex. The field of geography, especially its subfield of human-environment interaction, is subject to the tensions in this interplay, as are other nexus points of
nature-society interaction such as environmental conservation and environmental
health (Wescoat 1992; Livingstone 1993; Grove 1995; Proctor 1998; Zimmerer 2000;
Castree 2002; Carter 2005). Humboldts activities in the Andes offer an early example of such tensions. On one hand, his undertakings and interpretations reflected

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355

the transatlantic interests of northern Europe at an early yet defining moment during the eclipse of Spanish colonialism in most of the Western Hemisphere. Humboldts inquiries into and concerns about mining, communications, and cinchona
all provide ample evidence of the economic and political interests of the governments and prospective investors of such increasingly powerful countries as France,
Germany, and Great Britain.
Yet Humboldts Andean interests centered on abiding, substantial engagements
with broad scientific and scholarly discourses and ideas that eclipsed those concerns that were immediately or merely instrumental to colonial power or commerceinspired cognitive possession. Humboldts interests in geological landscapes clearly
predominated over the economic aspects of mining in capturing his attention while
he was in western South America. Similarly, his inquiries into communications and
transportation reflected his sustained interest in the Inca and pre-Inca pasts that
overshadowed more narrowly strategic or tactical concerns. Similar too was his central focus on the scientific aspects of the geographical distribution of cinchona,
rather than on commercial prospects per se. The rendering of Humboldts pursuit
of his pragmatic interests as purely colonial undertakings of cognitive possession
or serving as an advance scout of European capitalism misrepresent the nature of
his multifaceted and open-ended engagement with these topics. Not least, Humboldts ties to the pioneering patriots of Colombia, such as Caldas and Zea, run
counter to a simplistic interpretation of his activities.
Finally, Humboldt must be seen as having created, through his Andean field
studies, open-ended knowledge about these topics that freely juxtaposed the perspectives that were later allied exclusively to the natural sciences, social sciences, or
humanities. In contrast to the conventional parsing of environmental and geographical knowledge into these large-scale categories, the fusion of Humboldts interests
suggests the approaches that later became identified with nature-society geography
and such subfields as cultural ecology, human ecology, political ecology, and environmental studies (BunkSe 1981;Turner 1989;Zimmerer 1996; Zimmerer and Bassett
2003; Robbins 2004; Zimmerer 2007). Humboldts main pursuits are closely associated with combinations of one or more modern disciplinary approaches.
Humboldts style of inquiry and his main interests in the Andes set the stage for
his later pioneering contributions to geography and ecology, particularly the fields
of biogeography and plant ecology (Worster 1977; Nicolson 1987,1996). In particular, essential ingredients of Humboldts contributions to these fields are clearly contained in and build on his experience in the Andes. First, Humboldt and Bonpland
followed itineraries in their travel routes through the Andean region that were shaped
by Humboldts main pragmatic concerns and that guided Bonplands prolific plant
collecting and taxonomic identification. The combination of their pursuits led them
to experience, repeatedly and firsthand, the eye-grabbing environmental variation
of the elevation-based traverses of the tropical Andes, which range from rain-forest
lowlands and foothills to glacier-clad mountainous peaks and tropical alpine grasslands. They traversed steep elevational gradients not only in present-day Ecuador

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T H E G E O G R A P H I C A L REVIEW

(home to Chimborazo and the other volcanic peaks they ascended) but also in what
are now Colombia and Peru.
Second, Humboldts Andean field studies and his pragmatic Andean interests
enabled him to develop and nurture his interactions with global networks of scientists and scientific institutions. These techniques subsequently became crucial to
his scientific and, especially, ecological and biogeographical formulations; he successfully gathered global-scale plant, climate, topographic, and geological data that
were required for the systematic formulations and large-scale synthesis of his later
works. Third, Humboldt used his Andean experience to hone his capacities and
demonstrate his success in acquiring, compiling, and interconnecting a copious
quantity of highly varied and diverse sorts of information. His pragmatic experiences in the Andean world were thus crucial. They provided him with an early and
vital crucible, unsurpassed in its personal importance, in which he forged single
amalgams of geographical and environmental synthesis from diverse elements that
in later generations became subject to standardized separation into the modernday sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
NOTES
I. Humboldt exerted his influence through extensive correspondence and personal meetings with
major political figures such as the Liberator Simon Bolivar and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.
Humboldt is also known to have had a major influence on such scientific and cultural figures as the
biologist Charles Darwin and the painter Frederic Church. Humboldt fully deployed his many connections as he arranged for travel activities in the Spanish colonies, infused his experience with prodigious
contextual information, and helped ensure the subsequent success of his publications and influence.
2. Numerous studies offer insight on Humboldts South American travels and sojourn (for example, Hagen 1955; Livingstone 1993; Caviedes and Knapp 1995; Gade 1999; Minguet 2000--2001;
Helferich 2004). Other studies have developed literary and cultural critiques to interpret his interactions in South America (for instance, Pratt 1992; Perez-Mejia 2002). My approach recognizes these
contributions, but combines a social-intellectual history and landscape/place-based perspective of
Humboldts environmental scientific activities. This article is also situated in the history and continued dynamics of geographical fieldwork. As Felix Driver (2001,iz) emphasizes,it is worth noting that
the historians of geography have paid far less attention to the subject of fieldwork . . . , despite the
evident significance of notions of the field and practices of fieldwork for the development of the
discipline (see also Mathewson 1986; Gade 1999; Sluyter 2oo6a, 2006b).
3. The vital importance of Andean travel to Humboldts legacy is ironic, given that the region was
not included in his original travel plans. He had initially planned to join a circumnavigation voyage
with the French naval captain Thomas Nicolas Haudin (1750?-1803). Following delay due to Napoleons
withholding of financial support, Humboldt intended to join the expedition of Lord Bristol to Egypt
and the upper Nile, but Bristol was forced to abort his journey when Napoleon invaded Egypt. Even
Humboldts revised plan did not include travel in western South America, for he anticipated an itinerary that crossed from Cuba and Mexico to a Pacific component featuring the Philippines. Only at the
last minute, and due to an outbreak of typhus aboard ship, did he choose to travel to Venezuela rather
than Cuba. He altered his plans to include western South America, landing near Cartagena and traveling overland through the Andes to Lima, in order to meet up with the recently financed expedition of
Captain Baudin, whose subsequently modified itinerary excluded the Pacific ports (Humboldt [ 179918591 1980).
4. Note the range of the specialized backgrounds and offices of these counterparts. The scientists
and natural historians, for example, included those with expertise in cartography and surveying, geology, botany, and chemistry. Colonial officials included high-ranking viceroys and bishops as well as
low-level missionaries and magistrates.

HUMBOLDT I N THE ANDEAN WORLD

357

5. His intertextual dialogue with these sources, characterized by a blend of evenhanded scholarly
judgment and careful bibliographical credit, propelled the advent of a modern historiography of Latin
America that transcended the traditions of blatantly anti- or pro-Iberian political presuppositions.
6. From this perspective even valuable recent studies of Humboldt (for example, Helferich 2004),
which have praised Humboldts diverse experiences and insights that took place in the field while in
present-day Latin America, have tended to overlook or downplay the vital, unceasing role of cultural
interactions and knowledge networks in Humboldts acquisition and representation of the knowledge
that he succeeded in forging into the early foundations of modern geography, ecology, and environmental science.
7. I n treating this connection my study explores the gap between the pragmatism of Humboldts
field-based observations and his later scholarly treatises that produced well-known contributions to
geography, ecology, and environmental science. This gap has been accurately pointed to in other studies, albeit in different framings. Cesar Caviedes and Gregory Knapp (1995, E), for example, noted that
It is not so much the observations he [Humboldt] made during his travels, but the inferences he
drew from them that were so scientifically relevant.Their study and others (for example, Gade 1999)
differ from this article, however, in that they do not focus on either Humboldts main areas of fieldbased observation or the connections of these primary pursuits to his renowned work in plant geography and ecology.
8. Among the critiques of the pristine myth are Ilenevan (1992), Butzer (1992), and Cronon
(1995). On the role of the pristine m y t h in Humboldts travels in Mexico. see Sluyter (2006a).
y. Huniboldt made similarly favorable comments about Caracas, Mexico City, and Havana. Still,
his travels through the Andes provided him the opportunity for a diversity of cultural interaction that
exceeded what accompanied his travels before and afterward. By comparison, Venezuela, where he traveled from the Caribbean coast into the headwaters of the Rio Orinoco, offered fewer population centers
and organized scientific activities at the time. Also in contrast were Humboldts travels to Cuba and
Mexico (1803-1804). which were based primarily, though not exclusively, in the capital cities.
10. These modern disciplines include geology, with a secondary emphasis on political economy,
which guided Humboldts interest in mining and geological landscapes; geography, with a secondary
emphasis on landscape archaeology, which were the fields of knowledge that underpinned his inquiries into communications and mapping; and biogeography, with a secondary emphasis on botanical
taxonomy, ethnobotany, and resource management, which provided the cornerstones in his pragmatic and scholarly pursuits related to the use and distribution of cinchona.

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